Negative Emotions

I wanted to share my thoughts on this because my friend spoke about it in a Facebook post. She said she was feeling sad, and that it’s not something we talk about. We don’t know how to deal with sadness, we’re just told that it’ll pass and good things will come. This is one of the heartbreakingly true things I’ve witnessed.

As a culture, we ignore or shun negative thoughts and feelings. We’re shamed if we have them, and they’re left unacknowledged and unaddressed. All that means is that they get worse or we become more confused and guilty for feeling bad. But the thing is, emotions come on a spectrum. We’re supposed to have bad, medium, and good. We can’t function on always feeling positively, just like we can’t function on always feeling negatively.

“Cheer up!”

“Be happy!”

“You’ll be okay!”

“Feel better!”

Why are those the things we say to someone who’s feeling down? Why don’t we ever say, “Do you want to talk about it? It’s okay to feel the way that you do, you know.”

Personally, there are times when I DON’T want to feel better. Where I just want to feel and be mopey because it’s been a while. I don’t want to cheer up or feel happy, because there’s nothing going on at the moment to elicit that emotion. What I’m feeling is a response to what I’m going through right now, I just need to be validated that it’s cool to have a bad time.

Have you ever felt badly about yourself because you felt jealous or clingy? Felt awful because you just happened to stumble into an episode of depression?

Why can’t we be sad? Why can’t we cry? Why can’t we be jealous because we want what someone else has? All these things make us human!

We shouldn’t be told to ignore these feelings and just leap into positive ones. We shouldn’t be made to feel bad because we can’t smile or be happy for something we’re not feeling. We shouldn’t numb ourselves to the bad in life. We should be aware of these negative emotions.

We should know where they stem from, just like how we can figure out why we’re happy or conjure happy thoughts. We should be able to treat these feelings as they are, feelings. All of our range of emotions and feelings should be treated and respected in the same way. Sometimes it’s okay to just be burnt out and want to be a potato… we can’t be an energizer bunny.